During a discussion about the difficulty Republicans are having repealing and replacing Obamacare, Trump addressed the issue of preexisting condition protections.

Here are his comments

Quote from: Donald Trump

"So preexisting conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you're 21 years old, you start working and you're paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you're 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, 'I want my insurance.' It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of."

Pretty much. Their donors want them to decrease taxes and business regulations. They exist for no other major purpose. Maybe they'll throw a half-hearted bone to the religious nuts now and again with some anti-abortion stuff. But at their core, they are purely employees of the corporate oligarchy, and have no real plan beyond reducing taxes and business regulations.

Replacing Obamacare requires a fair amount of taxation on the rich. There is no option that both reduces taxes on the rich and pays for healthcare. They can dance around the issue all the want, but in the end they either keep the ACA, replace it with something that is only trivially different and still requires taxing the rich, or they boot huge numbers of voting Americans off healthcare.

All three options leave them completely lost.

Keeping the ACA pisses off the rich donors whose cock they suck for a living. Booting Americans off healthcare will get them voted out of office. Replacing the ACA with something trivially different is the worst possible option, since it still pisses off their rich donors, and makes the Republicans responsible for all the ways that the ACA is clearly inferior to the single-payer system used by the rest of the civilized world, and hands the Bernies of the world the lever needed to push hard for single-payer.

President Donald Trump's administration has ended Affordable Care Act contracts that brought assistance into libraries, businesses and urban neighborhoods in 18 cities, meaning shoppers on the insurance exchanges will have fewer places to turn for help signing up for coverage.

Community groups say the move, announced to them by contractors last week, will make it even more difficult to enroll the uninsured and help people already covered re-enroll or shop for a new policy. That's already a concern because of consumer confusion stemming from the political wrangling in Washington and a shorter enrollment period. People will have 45 days to shop for 2018 coverage, starting Nov. 1 and ending Dec. 15. In previous years, they had twice that much time.

Some see it as another attempt to undermine the health law's marketplaces by a president who has suggested he should let "Obamacare" fail. The administration, earlier this year, pulled paid advertising for the sign-up website HealthCare.gov, prompting an inquiry by a federal inspector general into that decision and whether it hurt sign-ups.

Now insurers and advocates are concerned that the administration could further destabilize the marketplaces where people shop for coverage by not promoting them or not enforcing the mandate compelling people to get coverage. The administration has already threatened to withhold payments to insurers to help people afford care, which would prompt insurers to sharply increase prices.

"There's a clear pattern of the administration trying to undermine and sabotage the Affordable Care Act," said Elizabeth Hagan, associate director of coverage initiatives for the liberal advocacy group Families USA. "It's not letting the law fail, it's making the law fail."

..........

During the most recent open enrollment period, they operated in the Texas cities of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, McAllen and El Paso; the Florida cities of Miami, Tampa and Orlando; Atlanta; northern New Jersey; Phoenix; Philadelphia; Indianapolis; New Orleans; Charlotte, North Carolina; Cleveland and Chicago.

In case you need more drama, McCain just went over to a cluster of Democrats including Chuck Schumer who all seemed happy to see him. They started a conversation where Schumer asked a question and then McCain dramatically seemed to imitate someone saying “fuck” while shaking their fists.

Obamacare: US senate votes down 'skinny repeal' of health act after revolt by John McCain

Senators argued late into the night but a partial healthcare repeal was defeated with the maverick Arizona senator proving crucial for the loss

Arizona senator John McCain provided a historic and critical vote to torpedo an Obamacare repeal bill – and with it Donald Trump’s legislative agenda – in a night of high drama on Capitol Hill.

McCain, who only returned to the US Senate earlier this week after a diagnosis of brain cancer, joined fellow Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in voting down the so called “skinny repeal” bill 51-49.

The six-term senator who was his party’s 2008 presidential nominee told reporters “wait for the show” before arriving for the vote in the Senate chamber.

There McCain was lobbied by Vice President Mike Pence, who was on the floor of the Senate to preside in case of a tie, for over 20 minutes. The two went back and forth and occasionally disappeared from the chamber altogether.

But as the votes were cast McCain, who had long nurtured a reputation as a maverick willing to buck party lines, showed his dissent giving a black eye to Trump, who had famously mocked McCain as “not a war hero” during the 2016 campaign.

But seriously, if you got out of your hospital bed after learning of your brain cancer, voted to continue to repeal, just so you could be the one who slams the door shut right on Trump's ugly orange face. That's pretty good.

John just got reelected and is facing a deadly disease. He'll never run again, one way or the other. Mafia Don can't fire him like another of his lackeys, and Trump's whole Presidency is burning down around him. I mean seriously, Anthony Scaramucci? L-O-L

By the way, the GOP's Health Care Plan received a 6% approval rating in an Arizona in a poll just a few days ago. Yes, that is six percent.